Zelda

 

When Santos left, it was sort of a relief. I instantly felt guilty for feeling that way, but it was difficult not to. There was a very particular type of woman that Santos wanted and most of the time I was pretty sure that wasn’t me. In fact, I didn’t even know why he wanted me, because I was sure most of the time he didn’t like me. Maybe it was the excitement of a new girl—though I was hardly that anymore—or maybe it was just the thrill of the chase. After all, I’d given him a good run for his money.

 

I watched him drive away, staying at the door until I was sure he was gone. That was a quick lesson I’d learned with Santos: always be the waiting, doting girlfriend.

 

When I finally saw his taillights disappear around the curve, I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Then I began to adjust. I tugged my hair out of the holder it had been in, letting it hang in thick waves down my back. It was hot against my neck, the summer night in full swing, but I didn’t care. I hated having my hair up, especially when I knew how important it was for Santos to have it up all the time.

 

I tossed it over my shoulder to shake it out a bit, then adjusted my shirt where he’d attempted to paw at it. Once again he’d pressed me, but again I’d told him, “Not tonight.” Thankfully, when his anger flashed, he’d merely gotten up to leave. Told me he’d be back tomorrow.

 

I sighed and forced myself to relax. Everything was fine.

 

Closing the door to my tiny house, I took a moment to give it back to myself. I went around the room and straightened things, moved them back from where Santos had picked them up and replanted them in awkward, unflattering places. Like my textbooks from nursing school. Useless now maybe, but still valuable even if it was only as somewhat bitter sweet memories of what I’d been working towards. Or like the candle with the little coin in it, the one that I refused to burn, because it had been a gift from…

 

Well, not that it mattered now anyway.

 

As I went around the house systematically straightening things up, I was surprised to hear a knock at the door. A knock and then a louder knock that quickly turned into a banging sound. Startled, I glanced over at the wall clock, frowning when I saw that it was just after ten at night. A little late for a visitor. I wondered if it wasn’t coming back for something—I didn’t think so, since I would have found whatever he’d left by now.

 

Heading to the door, I straightened myself up, flattening my too unruly hair and checking my lipstick in the mirror to make sure that it was still in place and not on my teeth. Santos liked a put together kind of girl and I had to work a little harder than I normally did to reach the type of perfection he was usually looking for.

 

When I was satisfied, I opened the door, fully prepared to find Santos—or at the very least one of his boys—on my door step. Instead, I nearly crumpled to the floor right then and there, my knees threatening to give way.

 

Nester Perry. My Nester.

 

He was tall, taller than I remembered. He towered over me almost like a giant, and he was bigger in general, too, I thought. His shoulders seemed larger and his arms were bulkier, as though he’d spent the last five years working out.

 

Maybe he had, maybe that was what he’d done with his time in prison, throwing himself into push-ups and sit ups and calisthenics and whatever else he could. That sounded like Nester.

 

I tried not to think about those five years, what they must have done to him—what they had done to me—but as my eyes devoured him of their own accord, I couldn’t help but wonder. Had he had the tattoo of the snake wrapping around his bicep before he went in? What about the one that curled down his neck and disappeared into the neck of his shirt? Had his hands always been so large, so strong? Had his thick hair always been so dark? And his lips…were they always so full, so damn kissable?

 

Yes. To that last one at least, yes. I remembered the way they used to press against my mouth, hungry and desperate almost every time, as though I was the first and only person he was ever going to kiss again.

 

That was just Nester, though. He was an all or nothing kind of man. It didn’t matter if he’d done a thing a thousand times, there was some urge inside him that made him treat it like the first.

 

It always made the bedroom a heated experience for me.

 

As my eyes traveled higher, I found his eyes, lined in thick black lashes that were still so silky. But his eyes…they were the same blue I remembered, sky blue, robin’s egg blue, the perfect blue. But they were cooler than I remembered, like someone had poured ice into them and left them out in the cold to freeze. Even in the heat of a Florida summer night, I shivered at the sight of them. At the way they narrowed in on me, stared me down in a frightening challenge.

 

And that’s when I realized it. He’d seen me. With Santos.

 

Nester brushed past me easily, my body automatically getting out of his way as I cringed a little at myself for the spike of fear that came. I’d never been afraid of Nester, and even now, in the heat of his anger, I knew that I wasn’t. Not really. It was only a flinch.

 

“Nester, I…” I began, not really sure what I would say, but knowing that I needed to make him understand now, because it would be my only shot.

 

But it didn’t matter, because he cut through me quickly, not giving me even half a chance to come up with some kind of explanation. Not that any would be good enough for him. I’d done too much for something like that. Far too much and Santos was simply the cherry on that sundae of betrayal.

 

“Shut up,” he snapped at me, the coldness in his eyes melting as fury overtook him. “You don’t get to talk right now. Not until I’ve gotten some words out. Not until I’ve said every wretched think I can think of and you’ve—”

 

He stopped suddenly and I had no idea why. His words were coming out rapid fire, angry and heated, but at least they weren’t like cold steel plunging into my gut. I could take his anger, because I knew Nester. He was the kind of guy who needed to get it all out, and if I could just let him, then I knew we could talk. We could talk and maybe I was wrong, that I did still have a chance, if only he could let some of that anger go. But I’d never seen him like this before, stopping mid rant and going still as stone. It scared me and unnerved me far more than any bout of anger ever would.

 

“Nester?” I got out in a tiny voice, afraid of what was to come.

 

I stepped forward and saw his eyes shift with me. That was when I noticed where they were focused. On my hand. More specifically, they were locked onto my ring finger where a giant rock was planted heavily. The thing was huge, a sparkling, gaudy diamond that I hated more than I ever appreciated. More than a few women at grocery stores and movie theaters and restaurants had noticed it and told me what a lucky woman I was, but I’d hated it since the moment it was slipped onto my finger.

 

How many times had it gotten caught in my thick hair? How many times had it torn fabric or knocked against something or spun around on my finger until it was hanging upside down awkwardly?

 

Thousands, though I supposed that wasn’t really the point. No, the point was that it wasn’t my kind of ring. It was Santos’s.

 

Sucking in a deep breath, I rooted myself to the spot. I wasn’t sure what to do now. Nester’s gaze was still locked onto that stupid ring and I knew he would ask about it and I sensed by his anger, by the way he’d glanced at me so coldly when I first opened the door for him, that he knew whose ring that was and that on some level it still hurt him.

 

Part of me was relieved; I’d thought he had gotten over me while in prison. The rest of me was eaten up inside. It didn’t matter if he’d gotten over me or not in the end, because I knew that we were over. Permanently. Forever.

 

Something clutched at my heart, but I pushed the feeling away. I’d made my choice.

 

“What the hell are you thinking?” he asked suddenly, his voice oddly quiet.

 

I was used to loud Nester who shouted what he thought, not caring who heard or what they thought of what they heard. And I was used to sweet Nester who whispered delicious and sometimes dirty sweet nothings into my ear while we indulged in each other’s bodies. But this? I wasn’t used to quiet Nester, and I sensed that it wasn’t a good thing.

 

“I…” But I didn’t know what to say, so I folded my arms across my chest, subconsciously hiding the ring beneath my right arm when I tucked my hand in the crook of it.

 

His eyes narrowed at the action. “How could you ever get married to a snake like Santos?” His eyes flashed and I saw that anger again, but it was deeper than before, more destructive.

 

I swallowed heavily and clenched my eyes shut. Why was I marrying Santos? I had my reasons. Important reasons. The kind of reasons that changed a game mid play and changed your opinions of people and actions, even though maybe you never thought they could. Nester had hated Santos for a long time—I wasn’t stupid enough to have missed that. But when Nester got arrested, everything had changed. But he was so clouded by rage that he would never understand. And that was how I knew I couldn’t tell him the truth.

 

“I know that you guys have a history,” I began tentatively, knowing that I had to choose my next words carefully or it was a waste of breath. “I know that…that you have some bad blood, but, Nester, he’s not such a bad guy!”

 

He actually laughed at that and I couldn’t help but wince at the harshness of it. “Not such a bad guy?” he repeated incredulously.

 

Feeling my own anger build, I put more force into my words. I narrowed my eyes at him. “That’s right. Santos’s been really good to me,” I told him angrily, stepping closer. “He’s taken care of me while you’ve been in prison!”

 

That last part slipped out before I could think better of it and part of me, most of me, wished that I could scoop the words out of the air and put them back into my mouth before he had the chance to hear them, but it was useless. He’d caught them and there was no taking them back.

 

“Right. Sure, of course. Taken care of you,” he spat. “Because he wasn’t the one who put me there in the first place, right?”

 

I bit my lip. There was a chance that it was true, that Santos had been the one to get Nester into trouble. I’d been working hard to tell myself that it wasn’t true, that Santos would never do something like that intentionally, but at the same time I knew how deep the hatred ran between the two of them. Santos hated Nester just as much as Nester hated Santos.

 

But even so, I had to believe that that wasn’t the case. Even Santos wasn’t so cruel.

 

I shook my head. “There’s never been any proof that he—”

 

“He was the one who tipped off the fucking cops!” Nester all but screamed at me, eyes flashing dangerously. “Who else would have done it?”

 

His words shook me, but I couldn’t let this get to me. I was where I was and there was no changing it. Not now. Probably never. Part of me sunk at that sad, pathetic thought, but I pushed it aside. No time to be weak now. “Oh, so I suppose you didn’t sell drugs at all, then, right?”

 

I saw Nester’s whole body tense, because he knew on some level that I was right. Whether Santos had set him up or not, Nester had gone along with the deal all on his own. Santos wouldn’t have been able to force him to do that no matter what Nester said. It didn’t mean that it wasn’t Santos’s fault if it had been him to call the cops on Nester, but Nester would have to accept some of the blame, too.

 

Even if I wasn’t sure that was really fair. This was the only life Nester had ever known; how could anyone expect any different? And in the end, I’d known what he was doing, too. Wasn’t I just as guilty, then?

 

“Bitch,” he got out between ground teeth, pushing past me.

 

I winced at the word. Nester wasn’t one to use derogatory words against me, but he wasn’t above it when he thought it was warranted. It hurt to think he thought I deserved that term, but at the same time, I thought maybe I did, too.

 

I turned to face him again, but his back was too me. I saw the muscles ripple beneath his tight white shirt and felt the heat on my face as soon as I realized how much I liked the sight.

 

He ran his hands through his dark hair almost savagely.

 

“So what the fuck was all of this?” Nester finally asked after a long pause.

 

I frowned at me. “All this?” I repeated, gesturing about my house as though that was what he was talking about.

 

He made a frustrated sound. “This. Us,” he clarified, and I felt my heart sink.

 

I shook my head, but of course he couldn’t see that. It was just that I didn’t know what to say. How was I supposed to answer that? Us had meant everything to me, but that was a long time ago now. What was the point of bringing all that up again? Were we supposed to reminisce and feel all the things we had felt all those years ago only to have reality come crashing back down around our shoulders? How was that supposed to help with anything?

 

When I didn’t answer, Nester turned around to face me again. There were deep lines in his otherwise youthful face, his full lips pulled down into a heavy frown that was almost more like a defeated sigh. I wasn’t stupid; I knew he was still mad at me, but there was something else there, too.

 

Hurt.

 

“What do you want me to say?” I finally asked him, almost letting my arms drop to my side again tiredly, but remembering that the ring was there and worried that it would set him off all over again. Not that this was exactly better, but still.

 

He let out a whoosh of air. “I want you to remember that time I took you to the movies and you were shocked that it was an outdoor thing with the blankets on the grass and everything. And when it rained everyone freaked out and left except for us. We stayed and made out in the rain, because that’s what you fucking do when you’re…”

 

He broke off, but he didn’t have to finish. I already knew what he was going to say because that was what I felt that night. In love. So in love that I didn’t care that a security guard shone his light down on us and told us that we needed to go, but seemed really embarrassed about the whole thing. So in love that I didn’t care that my dress was practically see through. So in love that I probably would have let Nester take me right then and there if we hadn’t been stopped.

 

In love. That was what Nester and I had clung to for so long before everything had suddenly fallen out beneath us.

 

In that moment, I wanted to tell him everything. But the truth teetered on the tip of my tongue and I couldn’t get it out. Not before his next words.

 

“Never fucking mind. I’m sorry I opened my damn mouth. In fact, I don’t know what the fuck I’m even doing here,” he said, biting each word off like it was a piece of jerky, tough and a little old and maybe too salty to be taking so many bites at a time. “The girl I’m looking for isn’t around anymore, is she?”

 

Before I had a chance to answer, to deal with the sudden swell of hurt that filled me, he was turning away. He left, slamming the door harshly behind him, and I was left to stare at the spot where he’d been.

 

It wasn’t the homecoming I would have hoped for all those years ago when he’d first been put away, but time changes things and people, and I knew that under the circumstances I had no right to ask for more. How could I tell him what really happened?

 

No, I couldn’t afford to risk Nester or anyone else, so my secret had to stay secret.